Bar Buddies
by stoleninnocence-insa
Summary: I sighed and realized that today was another night that I would have to deal with a broken heart alone. Yes, a broken heart, being slowly nursed by a bottle of liquor to give me great thoughts. Implied pairings. NejixSakuraXSasuke
1. Chapter 1

**Bar Buddies**

I sighed and realized that today was another night that I would have to deal with a broken heart alone. Yes, a broken heart, being slowly nursed by a bottle of liquor to give me great thoughts.

They whispered to me about seduction and death.

I was drunk and I knew it, the very smell of acrid alcohol seemed to form a mist around me, a constant reminder that, yes, my fragmented heart was still beating—and still hurting. I licked my lips, turning to the perfect stranger next to me.

" Do you know what it feels like to live a broken life?" I asked curiously, eyeing the mysterious man. I took in his dark, dark hair, and his pale complexion against his hair, and the black cloak he wore. His eyes were down cast and I couldn't see the color of them, but all the less, the stranger was someone I knew—on some intimate level. I felt the deep sadness as he threw back another shot of some clear liquid that burned him.

He grimaced, and looked at me, his dark gray eyes filled with hatred.

" I know what it feels like to have your heart held within porcelain hands." He replied just as evenly as I did, and I wondered how many drinks he had already.

I nodded my head in agreement. " Yes, me too…," I gave a bitter smile, " although it seems as though those hands were a bitter more sturdy and certain for me."

The man gave no reply.

" I will tell you my life's story, the first time that it has ever been heard by another—much less a complete stranger. So…if I should fall into incoherent and unconnected ramblings, forgive me, for I tend to drift away…" I put my head down and stared at the liquor stained wood.

" My friends knew, but didn't even try to warn me, their looks of pity and disappointment was enough substantiation of their culpability, treachery, and deceit. The trouble with true friends is that they see your inner most secrets, even before a word has passed from your lips; they can see what nuisance and aches lies upon the horizon. And so I left the party with their sympathetic eyes. My lonely and despondency must have captured me in a strong and inexorable hold—like a hypnotic drug that stays in your system long after you shot it. Lord knows I know, I was forced before.

"Even though my heart pressed on against my rib cage, a prison my heart could not flee from without my life being extinguished, no matter how guile, it was still a cage nonetheless, and I watched with tainted and glassy eyes.

"In that moment, something in me broke, but I could not flee, the demons would still follow because they were _inside_ me. And I could not run from them—powerless and at their mercy. The last bit of light in my soul was plunged into darkness and despair became my lover.

"I watched as he tenderly held her, and saw the beginnings of their unfaithful dance. The sight of them undressing transfixed me. I stood there shamelessly, staring into something that was not meant to be shared with another but those two. I felt something, somewhere deep in me vainly wishing that it were I being held, cradled in his arms as if I was something precious and meaningful to him. I often imagined how it would feel to have my first taste of a man upon my lips, branding and searing into every inch, and cell of me, that I was his. I imagined learning his body, his wants and desires and fantasies as he learned mine.

"Then the knowledge of knowing his body as he would no mine before we would join physically and spiritually. I had an epiphany. I would never be his. He could never love me as I loved him, and I would never know the joy of making love to me, or bearing his—our—children.

"The truth was, there was no one to love me, as that because the difference between love and lust was one did not exist, while the other ruled our reality." I looked up to the bar- tender, sending up my small hand to call for another shot.

He slid the glass over to me, along with the entire bottle, almost still filled to the top. I barely made a dent in it.

" It hurts so bad to know that, he knew I watched, and he stroked **_her_**, instead of **_me_**. He called **_her_** name instead of **_mine_**, and he found his release in her instead of me." I turned to the man. " You know that saying 'Let the dead bury the dead'? Well in this case, it is simply ' Let the unfaithful lust after the adulterous.' Yes, adultery, and carnal pleasure from a human or inanimate object seemed so pleasing…but it's not…it's empty. What good is it to share your body with someone when you know that inside their cold, and numb, and there is nothing but an empty shell?"

I chuckled.

" Drunken men tell no tales, and no tales shall I tell."

I nodded my head in agreement to my last statement. _"_ _Bloody valentines, raise your glass high, and drink. Come let us drink and accept the blood bond to which our memories and lives are one. Venture farther into this bloody death, and in exchange, I offer immortality for the last bit of light left within your pale soul…"_ I was singing, happily, my head nodded along with the tune. _" Do you desire revenge against them? Lust after their deaths and I'll cut their heart out, and let you drink from it as it's still beats, and tells you it's crimes." _

The man shifted next to me slightly. His composure just as smooth and stoic as it was when I first noticed him. I raised my glass in the air as to make a toast with an invisible audience. " So I raise my glass and toast to my blood valentine, may your heart beat with lies of deceit!" I downed my shot, slamming it down on the table.

I eyed the liquor. " It seems as though I have my work cut out for me and will be here a while." I sighed. " At one point, I pitied all those who were weak enough to turn to alcohol as a deterrent from their pain…I always thought I was better than that, but it seems that I am not. Not as long as the bitter taste of this alcohol on my tongue soothes me with its promise of seduction—if only for one night."

Again, I turned to the man. " As long as we lie to ourselves and intoxicate ourselves to not to feel the pain…I shall base this relationship of ours on truths and lies." I extended my hand out to him. " I shall offer no indication on whether I am lying or telling the mere and transparent truth, however, at this point to may call me Aexi."

The man turned to look at me. He looked at my out-stretched hand as if realizing it was not transparent, but rather opaque, as was the rest of me. He slowly stretched his hands out to touch mine, and I felt the rough skin slid against mine almost snugly, before his hand gave mine a gentle shake. " You may call me Maru." His voice was smooth and gentle as he regarded me and introduced himself.

I nodded, and drew my hand away.

Soon we fell into a tepid silence.

" Continue with your story, Miss Aexi."

I turned to stare at him, at loss for words for a moment, and then nodded, turning to face the shelves full of glasses. " It seems as though, my insomnia filled nights have blended together with no days." Begrudged, I realized that it had been awhile since my last drink, and I was sobering up. " During the day, I go about like a phantom, and at night, I am acutely aware and alive."

" As are many."

I was silenced for a moment, deciding where to continue. " Sometimes I find myself trying to recall how I got somewhere. I find myself in the shower without remembering stripping myself and turning on the water. I find myself in a steamy bathroom, with sweltering water pulsing and pattering against my red skin, and yet I do not feel it. Or I find myself eating, yet I cannot taste the food. It is as if trying to eat dry air.

" What is it I know about love…? Perhaps nothing. How can I know of something that does not exist? I have been driven to drink owing to some chimera that I confused with reality. The lines blended…" I let my lips twitch slightly to smile, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I finally downed the rest of my drink, the glass slamming almost like the echo of a final judgment. " Upon my epitaph, it shall say that I have known my lover well, and walked with him all the way. My footsteps will have been walked upon the path of the Lord's, following the steps that he has laid out for me. Only in Death do we find all of Life's answers, and perhaps if we do not, we are forced back to this hell once again. That is the legacy I leave to those who have known me."

I got up to leave, looking at the bartender, with a twisted little smile on my face, as I picked up the liquor bottle and cradled it in the crook of my arm and breast like a child. " Put it on my tab, Mil."

I turned to look at Maru again. " Same time, ne?"

He gave a curt nod.

" Aa." I whispered, before turning away, the almost ghost sound of a chair scooting across the hard floor, followed by phantom footsteps shadowed along in my wake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Bar Buddies Chapter Two: Nightmares**

" _No matter how many times I try,_

_I cannot wipe their blood from my hands."_

" I stared at my pale hands. Their innocent look was so askance. It seemed as though wit my inherent and arcane epiphanies, I was sent into and daily helix of arbitrary insanity. I closed my hands into fists and let them fall to my side. My thoughts were not mine all the time for even though there was an arduous armistice, I knew he was invading me."

'I can still see their blood on my hands.'

" Theif faces were shocked and terrified, but their eyes still held secrets—frozen and deadly, still; their bodies pale, and naked…and cold. Theif blood sprayed around them like rusty smelling faded wings."

I threw back the shot-glass and downed the burning liquor. " You know how you have a nightmare? Whether or not it's repetitive, or a new twisted figment of your imagination, it is still your _imagination._" I chuckled. " Hey, Mil, give me another shot, hm?" I waited for him to finish pouring my drink. The golden amber liquor sloshed against the rim. I picked up the glass and stared at another world. " I've got real nightmares. I still see, smell, even _feel _their blood. I can taste their fear, yet I can still see their secrets. They _won't _tell me."

I turned to Maru. His dark gray eyes assessed me. " Did you expect them to?"

I gave a laugh, before throwing the drink down again. The liquor burned, but the glass was cool. " I don't know what I expected. I didn't expect…I killed her. I left him alive. He's sitting in a cerebral sanatorium, rocking back and forth. He didn't whimper her name, he said _mine_. **_Mine_**. ' Why?' He cried. 'Why?!' I laughed inside, in that twisted part of my psyche, but I screamed as I say my hands saturated in blood. You know what I told him."

Maru stilled." What did you say miss Aexi?"

" I said, 'Why? You tell me why.'" My eyes hardened. " I turned to the room I stood in. In the shadows, I watched his infidelity. I stepped forward, tears falling down. 'Am I not enough?' I whispered angrily, my pathetic excuse for being unfeeling was to stare blankly at the woman who laid on my spot, my tears blurred the scene and her face. ' Why am I not enough?'"

I sobbed. " Give me another hit, Mil."

There was another pause for my drink. " I still see their blood on my hands. Do you believe me?"

" No."

" Mo pa konmprann." I shook my head angrily. " I don't understand."

Maru paused, before leaning closer. " You're not suppose to."

" Why not?"

Maru stood, silently moving behind me. His cold pale hands grasped my shoulder in an almost comforting gesture. His lips moved to my ear. " All of your questions, I provide an answer."

" Then why me?"

I already knew his answer, so he said nothing. 'I don't know.'

" I wish I did. Why didn't I do it?" My liquor remained untouched.

" Stay the night at my place. This liquor shall not provide your intoxication. I will." He helped me stand, and I leaned against him.

" I can still hear their pleads. No matter how hard I try, I cannot wipe their blood from my hands."


End file.
